Paraliterary text: Yevr.-Arab. II 933

Paraliterary text Yevr.-Arab. II 933

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In PGP since 2020

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Colophon for an unknown work dated Shawwāl 896 Hijri, which is 1491 CE. "This work and its companion were written in the name of (=by?) אלהכ׳ b. Yehuda Ibn al-Khāzin. The most interesting element of this colophon is the subsequent statemen that the volume is dedicated to (part of the heqdesh of?) the Dār Sameaḥ = Dār Simḥa Qaraite synagogue. There is a marginal note in a different hand that reads, "At the beginning of the building/foundation of the aforementioned synagogue." Haggai Ben-Shammai has written that the Dār Simḥa synagogue (the source of much of the Firkovich, now RNL, collection) is known from documents from at least the beginning of the sixteenth century." Ben-Shamnmai, "Is 'The Cairo Geniza' a Proper Name or a Generic Noun?" in From a Sacred Source, p. 44. This document supports that dating and suggests that the synagogue was new (or renovated?) in 1491 CE. But see Yevr.-Arab. II 850, a document from 1337 CE that shows that the synagogue existed 150 years earlier.